Page 26 of Leaving the Station
I wish I felt that way about anything. I get glimpses of it sometimes, of who I’m meant to be, but the feeling never lasts long enough for me to bottle up and store it.
I felt it briefly that night with Alden in the bowling alley, when I was running behind him, following his lead, the wind rushing through my thick ponytail.
I never felt that way about being a doctor, that’s for sure. Maybe I felt it a bit in the greenhouse, but that wasn’t a career. That was a part-time student job where I went to escape the rest of my life.
When I’m back in my trusty booth, I can barely keep my eyes open as I sip my coffee. I’m in the fuzzy space between sleep and wakefulness, and I let my mind drift. I think about spending last night with Oakley. I love that when I was talking to her, I didn’t back down on my beliefs. I wasn’t compromising any part of myself.
I let the train lull me into this sleep-adjacent state until someone shouts, “ZOE!” near my face.
It’s Aya, kneeling on the booth across from me. She crawls to the window and presses her face against the glass, fogging it up with her little-kid breath. She writes, “AYA,” in precise letters with her index finger.
“Where’s your mom?” I ask, not wanting her to be reprimanded for running into the café car by herself.
“Oh, it’s fine,” she says. “She knows I’m here. I told her I saw you.”
“Right.”
Her mom must be desperate for a moment alone if she’s letting her daughter hang out with a random person she met in the café car.
Aya talks at me about trains for an indeterminate period of time, and I sip my coffee and try not to fall asleep. When she’s in the middle of telling me about how the Grand Canyon Railway steam trains run on vegetable oil, the conductor gets on the loudspeaker to make an announcement.
“All right, folks, we’re approaching our final stop: Chicago’s Union Station. If you’re joining us on the Empire Builder heading out west, you’ll have a four-hour layover to explore the beautiful Windy City before boarding.”
“Are you going on the Empire Builder?” Aya asks.
I nod. “Are you?”
“Yup, my mom and I have to go to Seattle to visit my aunt. We were going to fly, but I wanted to take the train and since it was just my ninth birthday my mom said we could do it. Like, for my last year before I’m double digits. Well, she didn’t say that exactly, but that’s pretty much what it is.”
“That’s really cool,” I tell her.
“I know.”
Aya runs to the sleeper car to meet up with her mom, and I head to my seat to grab my backpack.
“Hey, you getting off at Chicago?”
I look up, and there’s Guy Fieri.
“Pretty sure we have to.” I heave my suitcase off the rack, trying to end a conversation before it begins.
But when I disembark, he’s there.
“I’m going to get lunch,” he tells me. “You should come with.”
“I’m okay,” I say, walking down the platform.
“My apartment isn’t far at all,” he adds.
And then, an oasis in the desert: Oakley, struggling with a large pink suitcase a few train cars ahead.
I point to her. “I’m getting lunch with my friend.”
I take off, not quite running, but moving as quickly as my wobbly train legs will allow.
Oakley must see the look on my face as I approach, because she says, “What’s wrong?” just as I whisper, “Play along.”
When I turn around, sure enough, Guy Fieri is approaching.
